Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Travel manager Harriet Hall is superb. She has a great telephone manner, extremely efficient, always provides the best deals and is always available to answer any queries. A great ambassador for DialAFlight.
Lucas was brilliant
Fantastic, thank you
As always excellent service from Marie and DialAFlight - I would certainly recommend them
The reason for the trip was to pay our respects to my brother who has recently passed away. Thankfully we didn't need to worry about any of the travel arrangements as every part of the trip was expertly organised. Thank you Greg.
Thanks to Darren and also a very patient lady member of staff who talked me through checking-in to BA as I did not realise an ESTA was not a visa
Saf provided an excellent service throughout.
Curtis was as efficient as ever.
It was all perfect thank you
Really helpful and informative. Upbeat and cheerful agents. DialAFlight have stood the test of time!
Couldn’t fault anything. Everything was perfect. Hotel was fabulous and we got a free upgrade. Happy days.
Fantastic service - will be booking this year's flights and hotels again with Trevor
Faultless provision of services recommended and delivered! And a very personal service, a rare benefit these days and of great value.
Once again DialAFlight exceeded in their service - we have used them for the last 10 years. Zoe comes up trumps every time.
To be quite honest, when travelling I wouldn’t use anybody else.
Once again thanks to Ashley our trip to Las Vegas and Hawaii ran like clockwork. From flight connections to hotel stays all first class
Gino did another great job for us. Perfect planning and excellent service. We'll be using your services again for sure.
You did everything I asked and more as I’m on my own now, thank you
Thanks for help with ESTA.
Extremely helpful, efficient and friendly
Once again, excellent service!
Good professional and friendly service. Always! Thanks Gavin and team
Everything is always smooth from booking right through to my holiday. Excellent service as always
Perfect trip
The 'skip the desk' with Alamo car hire worked brilliantly. Just walked to the garage, they looked at my booking and directed me to the line of cars and I had a choice of 9 cars. Chose one I liked, drove to the exit, they scanned my bar code, gave me the paperwork and I was off. So easy and stress free.
Absolutely second to none where service is involved … you're never alone with your booking and always very helpful in keeping you updated and making personal phone calls
Callum helped so much with this accomodation and was there when I had an issue on arrival. So I’d like to thank him for going several extra miles
Flight was cancelled. Situation was managed very well.
As always smooth and easy.
Another great trip, everything went as planned. Many thanks to Lucas again for his efforts and professionalism
A BIT OF HISTORY
In his 1891 book Palms And Pearls: Or Scenes In Ceylon, Alan Walters highlights a 14th century Icelandic work which names Paradise as an island off India 'studded with flowers', which he believes to be Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972.
And French author Hugo Victor is believed to be referring to Sri Lanka when he writes: 'Paradise is a spot in the Orient productive of all kinds of woods and pomiferous trees: it contains the Tree of Life; there is neither cold nor heat but perpetual equable temperature.'
Arrival in Sri Lanka, with the chaos of Colombo airport and the surrounding roads, seemed some way from that early notion of Paradise.
But once you reach the areas of natural beauty, you'll see why the Paradise description is so apt. There are 26 national parks in Sri Lanka, each one teeming with wildlife. I stayed at the Uga Escapes resort of Chena Huts, in Yala National Park.
A PLACE TO RELAX
The hotel is intimate, with just 14 luxury suites, and they're spread out to ensure maximum privacy.
A sign on the path to the hotel declared that an elephant had last been sighted here just three days before.
One lunchtime, we were enjoying a watermelon martini at the bar when four monkeys sat down just yards away. And on another occasion, we wandered down to the sandbanks below the resort and heard a huge crash. Turning around slowly, we came face to face with an elephant. He was unfazed, but we were overcome with emotion. It was one of the best moments of my life.
You might think that the staff would become blasé about living so close to wildlife, but they delighted in showing us photos of leopards, crocodiles, wild boars and elephants which had all meandered into the hotel grounds. The private suites at Chena Huts are similar to safari lodges: vintage camping lamps, a freestanding bath, a huge bed, colonial style rugs and - a safari essential - Nespresso machine.
There's a plunge pool in the garden of each suite, too - as well as an enormous, lagoon-like pool moments away.
Meals and alcohol are inclusive and you can turn up to eat at any time. And once you've tasted the Sri Lankan fish curry, you'll want to sign up for the cookery classes offered by the head chef.
At 6.30am every day you can set off on a safari tour of the park (or at 3.30pm, though morning gives you a better chance of leopard sightings). Driving through the park, you'll suddenly come to a clearing which looks as if you've been transported to Africa, with huge lakes covered with water hyacinths, and mountains looming in the background.
We saw toucans, elephants, leopards, monkeys and water buffalo - a fabulous experience.
Following our stay at Chena, we set off on a three-hour drive to Weligama, a popular surfing beach on the south coast. Here we stayed at Cape Weligama resort, perched on a clifftop.
The resort has an activities centre where you can take out surfboards, snorkels and paddleboards. There are also scuba-diving courses. I was happier sitting by the Moon Pool - an infinity pool fringed with palm trees where you can watch the surfers bobbing like buoys, waiting for the next big wave.
A VISIT TO GALLE
The nearby town of Galle is one of the most distinctive on the island. It features a 16th century fort built by the Portuguese. We had tea at the Galle Fort Hotel, the most chic destination on the coast.
Back in Colombo,Residence, another Uga Escapes hotel, is the
perfect sanctuary. It's a ten-minute walk from the Town Hall and near the
Gangaramaya Temple, so ideal for sightseeing. We sat by the hotel pool sipping
a gin and tonic and plotted how to return to Paradise as soon as
possible.
First published in the Mail Online - September 2018
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